The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a non-governmental organization, filed a case against the Federal Republic of Nigeria alleging human rights violations as a result of the government’s failure to ensure adequate environmental protection in the Niger Delta due to oil spillage. SERAP alleged that decades of oil prospection and exploitation by private corporations …Read more

Gable Masango, a prisoner serving a twelve-year prison term in Malawi, brought suit against Malawian government officials claiming the conditions of his and his fellow prisoners’ imprisonment violated the Republic of Malawi Constitution and the Prison Regulations of the Prisons Act (“Prison Regulations”). The prisoner alleged that the prison provided insufficient resources, including insufficient diet …Read more

The complainants, two human rights organizations based in Sudan, the United Kingdom and Canada, alleged gross and systematic violations of human rights on the part of the Republic of Sudan and Government-supported militia forces in the Darfur region against indigenous tribes, including the Fur, Marsalit and Zaghawa. The organizations alleged that since General Omar Al-Bashir …Read more

Argentina’s Human Rights Ombudsman brought a claim against the National Government and the Province of Chaco to force Respondents to take the necessary measures to improve the deleterious living conditions of an indigenous community in Chaco that amounted to circumstances of extreme emergency. The Ombudsman claimed that the community lacked fundamental and basic necessities as …Read more

The plaintiffs were residents of a group of islands heavily affected by the 2004 tsunami. They argued that they were facing a number of problems which the local administration could take steps to mitigate and that the problems required immediate governmental action. They argued that, while there were relief funds, these funds were not being …Read more

Petitioners, leaders of the Yakye Axa indigenous community of the Enxet-Lengua people, filed suit against the Republic of Paraguay alleging violations articles 4 (right to life) and 25 (right to judicial Protection) of the American Convention on Human Rights (the Convention). They further alleged that Paraguay ignored article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil …Read more

The indigenous community of Yakye Axa, a traditional society of hunter-gatherers, was resettled as part of a development program in Paraguay started in 1979. They were displaced to lands with a natural environment and resources that were different from the Yakye Axa’s traditional territory and incompatible with their traditional means of subsistence.  They also faced …Read more

This case was heard by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Their opinion is available here. Leaders of the Yakye Axa indigenous community of the Enxet-Lengua people filed suit against the Republic of Paraguay claiming that the Paraguayan State violated Articles 4 (right to life) and 25 (judicial protection), in conjunction with Article 1(1) (obligation …Read more

The applicant alleged that the military government of Nigeria (Government), in its efforts to produce oil through the State-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), contaminated the environment of the Ogoni People and led to environmental degradation and health problems among that community. More specifically, the applicant claimed that the NNPC, acting within a consortium with …Read more